Please take a look and tell me what you think.

[Harold Mansfield]

As some of you know, I have been struggling to get the right formula for a political blog.
My last attempt Clusterfox.org (http://www.clusterfox.org) is no more. I just couldn't get behind the name, I thought it was too limited and I had some unorganized design issues.

Clusterfox.org is now iPundit. #2 of 3 of these that I plan on building.
Most importantly, it serves as a working example for my portfolio to show some diversity.

I'm still searching for a way to say "Adult" without using the word "Adult" or "Mature" and I don't want to limit it to Politics anymore.

Please give some preliminary opinions on the look and feel.
The link (http://ipundit.org)

[Business Attorney]

I think it looks good. I would probably re-order the menu to move blogs and forums before members and groups, but I may not be seeing the site the exact same way that you envision it.

[Harold Mansfield]

I think it looks good. I would probably re-order the menu to move blogs and forums before members and groups, but I may not be seeing the site the exact same way that you envision it.

I could do that. I was thinking that "Blogs" should be first, it does seem logical.

[KristineS]

I like it. That's a site that on which I would start a blog. I've been thinking of getting into doing some political writing, after years of keeping my opinions to myself because of my job, I'm starting to have a lot of stuff I want to say.

[Harold Mansfield]

I like it. That's a site that on which I would start a blog. I've been thinking of getting into doing some political writing, after years of keeping my opinions to myself because of my job, I'm starting to have a lot of stuff I want to say.

Wow! Coming from someone who already writes 4 blogs and could easily just set one up anywhere, that is a HUGE.

That is exactly how I am hoping it comes across and how people will respond to it.

[Harold Mansfield]

I am still adding stuff. Just finished up the Features Page. (http://ipundit.org/about/features) I put it on a wiki, instead of having multiple pages.
I also am playing around with promotions (http://ipundit.org/about/features/#Get%20a%20Free%20Lifetime%20Premium%20Upgrade) for when I do start to advertise.

What do you think? Is it enough ?

I obviously don't expect you to read through it all, I'm just want to make sure that the layout of the page is OK and doesn't look cheesy or janky.
It's probably the most important page on the whole thing.

[Spider]

Thank you for not fixing the font size and allowing the user to choose via the tools bar "text size" button. (I'd like to have seen the page width unfixed, too, but the use-adjustable text size is good.)

You may wish to consider promoting your blog community to people who are vision-impaired. Obviously the totally blind would not be able to blog - unless you included text-to-speech software - but the vision-impaired who can read large fonts can now participate in your site.

Well done, Harold!

[Harold Mansfield]

As much as I'd like to take the credit for that, I am merely customizing a premium design so the coding was done by someone else.
But I agree I should pay more attention to that in the future, especially as bad as my eye site is, I should know better.

As far as Speech to Text software, that is a little above my head for now. I would think that would be a local app installed on a users computer wouldn't it?

[Spider]

As much as I'd like to take the credit for that, I am merely customizing a premium design so the coding was done by someone else.
But I agree I should pay more attention to that in the future, especially as bad as my eye site is, I should know better...Note to younger folk - one's eyes begin to weaken at age 40 and small font gets progressively more difficult to read. If you want your pages to be read by people over 40, you would be advised to make the font on your site user-adjustable.



...As far as Speech to Text software, that is a little above my head for now. I would think that would be a local app installed on a users computer wouldn't it?I know a totally blind person who uses text-to-voice. I suspect you may be right - I can ask her, if you wish. In fact, there may be a personal service for it, just as there is for speaking over the telephone to a deaf person.

[Harold Mansfield]

Finally finished The Blog (http://blog.ipundit.org/), Facebook Page (http://www.facebook.com/pages/iPundit/119084998108683?v=box_3#!/pages/iPundit/119084998108683?v=wall)and threw up a Twitter profile (http://www.twitter.com/iPunditOfficial)for this.

One great thing about Twitter,if you change your mind, you can change you name.

One thing that I didn't know before is, even non-members or logged out users can see the blog authors from the drop down menu above the blog. I really like that!

[Harold Mansfield]

I am still adding stuff. Just finished up the Features Page. (http://ipundit.org/about/features) I put it on a wiki, instead of having multiple pages.
I also am playing around with promotions (http://ipundit.org/about/features/#Get%20a%20Free%20Lifetime%20Premium%20Upgrade) for when I do start to advertise.

Among other changes to the home page, and logo, those links are dead.
Features Page (http://ipundit.org/features/)
Premium Features Page (http://ipundit.org/features/premium-features/)

[Harold Mansfield]

I had to do a redesign on this. Something was just not right and it was really bugging me since I couldn't put a finger on it.

Also added some new features including extended profiles in which you can add you Social Networking info, a short bio, a company video ( if you have one) and add an RSS feed. Example: http://ipundit.org/members/admin/profile/

There's also a new feature on the back end called "Easy Blogging" that provides a wizard for new bloggers - getting them going in three simple steps and informative "help" boxes and tool tips describing some of the features and settings.

[vangogh]

It's looking really good. Nice call to action on the home page as well as the easy description of what to do right below.

The blog pages have an interesting look. Did you find a BuddyPress theme or is it custom or customized?

[Harold Mansfield]

It's looking really good. Nice call to action on the home page as well as the easy description of what to do right below.

The blog pages have an interesting look. Did you find a BuddyPress theme or is it custom or customized?

It's actually right out of the box. I changed one or 2 things and that was it. It was just released from WPMUDEV the other day and I jumped on it.

I thought it was way better than what I had going on.

First time I saw a design that I didn't want to hack up.

[vangogh]

Nice. It looks good. Compliments to the box it came out of.

[KristineS]

Nice, but it's not politics anymore? I was looking forward to blasting some politicians if my writing mojo ever came back.

Although I suppose I could just switch to blasting stupid marketing people who give out bad advice. That could work.

[Harold Mansfield]

Nice, but it's not politics anymore? I was looking forward to blasting some politicians if my writing mojo ever came back.

Although I suppose I could just switch to blasting stupid marketing people who give out bad advice. That could work.

You can write whatever you want. I'm just trying to make it clear that MFA's are not allowed.
I was thinking about starting one for Politics for myself, there's tons of political words available that would fit nicely on the domain.

[Blessed]

Nice, but it's not politics anymore? I was looking forward to blasting some politicians if my writing mojo ever came back.

Although I suppose I could just switch to blasting stupid marketing people who give out bad advice. That could work.

I was wondering what happened to your writing mojo :)

Blasting stupid marketing people is something I could get behind too...

Harold - I actually like the expanded focus better. Now if only I could get Christine to hurry up and graduate so she can focus on writing for the blog we'd be in business, since my writing mojo seems to have flown south for the summer, or something crazy like that.

[dynocat]

Along the lines of blasting marketing people, I'd like to Wake Up business owners who have no clue about marketing. While I'm at it, I'd blast the marketing people who take advantage of their naivete.

Just Kidding, I love my business owners, but seriously they don't have a clue. :)

[Paper Shredder Clay]

The site looks great man! Only problem that I don't like is the stretched images.

[Harold Mansfield]

The site looks great man! Only problem that I don't like is the stretched images.

Which images look stretched to you? A lot of them are cropped, but the dimension ratios remained the same.I definitely don't want that, can you point them out to me? I'm obviously not seeing it.

Update: I did change that first image. It was bothering me. It just didn't match up correctly with the other images..it seemed to be bleached out.

[Harold Mansfield]

In building another site, I learned a few things that I should have done with this one, that I need to go back and do.
So it remains live, but some reorganization and design changes are coming.
I'm really just not happy with it.
It's missing all kinds of stuff.

[vangogh]

That's the way it always is. No sooner do a I finish a site when either I think of something else I could have done or I come across an article showing me a better way to do what I did.

I think it's that Murphy and his law.

[KristineS]

I think anyone who does anything online is always going back and tweaking later. I read back through old blog posts sometimes and think I could have said something more clearly, or used a different and better word in a certain paragraph. At some point you just have to put things up and let them do what they do. If you wait for perfection you'll never get anywhere.

[vangogh]

Yep. It's not even limited to online stuff. It's the nature of life. Things change. We learn to do them better now than we could in the past. I can look back at most anything I did years ago and know I can do it better now. And tomorrow I'll know how to do them even better. If you wait for perfection you'll never get anything done.

[Spider]

Is there an echo in here? :rolleyes:

[vangogh]

Is there an echo in here? :rolleyes:

[Harold Mansfield]

One of these days , I would like to look at one of my sites, just once, even if its just for a day and say to myself "It's done".

Instead it's always "Darn it, Why didn't I do that?".

[vangogh]

Sites are never done. The moment you think your site is done is the moment you give your competition permission to beat you.

[KristineS]

I think the day you get satisfied with what you're doing is the day your work starts going down hill. Please keep in mind, I don't mean you should be hyper critical and a perfectionist and never, ever be proud of or satisfied with anything you do, but I do think you have to keep looking for ways to make things better.

The moment "good enough" is good enough, you've lost your edge. Sometimes you do have to settle for good enough due to time,money or skill restraints, but even then it should bother you a bit.

Working to always be better is what brings success.